


To live again

by Lavenza13



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Pre-Kingdom Hearts I, Second Chances, Zack and Yuffie friendship, getting deep with the lore, hc that ff characters died in their worlds and were reborn into kh worlds, i'll update the tags with the second chapter, probably slight canon divergence, the fall of Radiant Garden
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 06:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21490201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavenza13/pseuds/Lavenza13
Summary: Have you ever felt deja vu? Have you ever felt like you've known someone for ages, despite just meeting? When your new friends turns out to be old (and so do you) , it’s pretty easy to get confused, but Yuffie is slowly getting hang of it.
Relationships: Aerith & Leon & Yuffie (Kingdom Hearts), Aerith & Yuffie (Kingdom Hearts), Cid Highwind & Yuffie Kisaragi, Godo Kisaragi & Yuffie Kisaragi, Leon & Yuffie (Kingdom Hearts), Yuffie & Zack Fair (Kingdom Hearts), Zack Fair & Cloud Strife
Kudos: 16





	To live again

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to play around with the lore of Kingdom Hearts and how it connects to the Final Fantasy one. Hope you'll enjoy it, because I was really sad there was no Restoration Committee in KH III. As always, point out any grammar mistakes!

The first time it happened, Yuffie hadn’t paid much attention to it. When she had a fight for a first time with her dad, he reprimanded her that a princess shouldn’t act like this. She simply stuck out her tongue and runway to play with her neighbors’ kids. Afterwards, he kept sometimes referring to her as a ‘_princess_’, but she simply brushed it off as a term of endearment.

The second time it wasn’t really her, but _him_. A teenage boy, older than her by ten years. Her father, Godo, had to leave for a business meeting in another world (but she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it, because apparently people didn’t know about _worlds_). Fearing that the trip would take an entire day, he decided to find a babysitter for his daughter (which was silly, because she was four, she could take care of herself). That’s how she met Zack, whom later became like a family to her. The first time they met, he arrived at the Kisaragi’s house, all smiles and bright eyes, so of course she had to show him who was the boss in that particular house. She jumped out from behind the armchair and threw a few weak punches at the black haired boy’s stomach with a battle cry. What she did not expect was for him to lose the smile completely and fall to his knees, gathering her into his arms, softly murmuring _I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, thank Minerva I’m not crazy_. It was weird, so she told him such, but her dad seemed slightly amused by it, whereas Zack just wiped his face and properly introduced himself, offering to teach her how to fold her fists correctly when punching, whilst her father was occupied by something else.

Once it turned out that Zack was pretty cool for an almost adult, she tried to declare him her honorary brother. However that brought another weird episode, where he got sad and didn’t talk to her for entire week. Later, he took her out for an ice cream and told her amazing, but hardly believable stories about his younger brother, who wasn’t really a brother, about how together they fought evil scientist, monsters, and aliens. After that she never called him brother to his face again, but kept telling people he was her cousin (of course they were a family, both of them had black hair after all).

He also gave her a pretty orb made of the most beautiful blue glass she had ever seen. She kept it and before they knew, they found themselves with a tradition. Whenever Zack would leave to train or learn, he came back with an orb made of colorful glass (or as she once called it, the materia; she wasn’t able to explain why the name seemed to fit, but the teenager only smiled a bit sadly and said ‘_then materia it is’_).

She was six when he left to find his lost brother, with a promise to return and introduce her to the ‘_awesome cloudy Cloud’_, as she dubbed him.

He broke his promise a year later.

_Or maybe she broke it, because she wasn’t strong enough to fight the darkness that overtook Radiant Garden._

When Yuffie was 10, it happened again. She was still having trouble adjusting to living in Traverse Town, to the people whom she never met before, but they seemed to know her and her father. She was getting much better at fighting, something that Godo seemed to accept surprisingly easily. He told her that she was a fighter deep in her soul and that he won’t lose her again because of his stubbornness (something told her not to question the _again_, feeling something warm swell inside her instead). Her father made Yuffie promise instead that she won’t run off to fight against the darkness without a word, or to try and find _her _lost brother.

It was after she had gotten hurt whilst trying to find a good technique of throwing her enlarged shuriken. Initially she went to the wizard Merlin, but he took one look at her and brought Yuffie to the new healer at the Traverse Town. Upon seeing the brunette with gentle smile on her face, she froze, suddenly a red stain blooming on the healer’s pinkish dress. A blink of her eyes and the stain was gone, and she found herself clinging to the girl, tears flowing down her face, the name _Aerith_ on her lips, familiar, but yet foreign.

Aerith, bless her soul, did not freak out or pushed her away. She just kept running her fingers through her short hair, the litany of _it’s okay, I’m okay_’s making her finally calm down. That was when Yuffie first realized something was slightly off. That was also when she begun having weird dreams. It was the brunette again, who reassured her that she wasn’t losing her mind. She told her stories of a different world, of tales so bizarre that she would have laughed at her, had she not heard half of those already from Zack. When she asked the older girl about her (honorary) cousin, she noticed tears in the green eyes. Aerith only confirmed that she had known him _before_, but haven’t met him _now_, refusing telling her anything, except that Zack was a true hero and that he had to tell her his story himself, because she only knew bits of it. She also knew the awesome cloudy Cloud, but she had gotten so sad at the very mention of his name, that the raven haired girl changed the subject quickly.

Her new friend also helped her find somebody to tech her how to fight. That somebody turned out to be a broody and silent Leon, whom she recognized as Squall, an elder boy from Radiant Garden (which was now called Hollow Bastion, because it hurt too much to even say the name and think about how much they lost along with their world). That’s when Yuffie got _that_ feeling again, not quite like before, but similar enough. Something about how silent he was, how he usually treated her like a child, but acting like they were equals during fights. She was certain that she hadn’t met him _before_, but there was something so familiar about him it was almost painful. She desperately tried to remember, jealous of how Aerith seemed to have all of her memories regained, whereas she struggled to recall even one person.

At first she couldn’t understand why he kept insisting on calling himself Leon now, stubbornly using Squall whenever she could. In the beginning she thought that he would finally snap about it and stop teaching her, so she stopped for a while, until he confronted her about it one day. The brunette admitted that he it wasn’t only because of the fall, but also something _that he did a long time ago_. Later she had gotten a full lecture about how she shouldn’t tell people about _the before_, but before that, she cautiously asked Leon if it had happened in a different time, where he wasn’t… well, Leon. He begrudgingly admitted that just like Aerith, he remembered his previous life (because that’s what it was, a life that had already ended; honestly it should have had a bigger impact on Yuffie that she had _died_ once, but it didn’t). He also made her a deal: he’d tell the young ninja his story, but she would have to promise to keep it to herself. That day Yuffie learned yet another tragic story of friendship, love and politics, a story about a magnificent place Balamb Garden (there was apparently a flying castle, how cool is that?!), a story about a terrible Sorceress, about how he saved his love, Rinoa and how she saved him. And yet it hadn’t been enough, because not long after they ended up separated, and swallowed by darkness along with some of their friends.

After that Yuffie made a point to not call him Squall, but still slipped up one day. It brought her another heartache when he just huffed exasperatedly and mumbled something about her and nicknames (that particular night she dreamed of swirling crimson and flashes of molten gold, sounds of screams and gunshots ringing in her head, the word _omega_ rattling around her mind). That was also how she gained another not-quite-brother. As much as Leon muttered about her being handful or annoying, he always was there when she got hurt (something that made her father annoyed, how she shouldn’t be hanging around older boys, but she just blew a raspberry at him and reminded him that he hadn’t had that problem with Zack).

It was hard for her when she was twelve and he started travelling between worlds, helping others and fighting against the spreading darkness. It reminded her too much of her lost friend. It took a few days of Aerith talking to her about fears and traumas (which was awful, but okay, maybe she had a teensy tiny trauma of her own), and Leon to explain to her that he won’t be going alone and that he won’t put himself in unnecessary danger and that he’ll try to stay in touch.

That led the young girl to meeting Leon’s main mechanic (and probably of entire Traverse Town). By the time she met Cid, she was getting kinda used to telling apart her _present_ feelings and memories from _past_ ones. Upon seeing Yuffie and Aerith, the elder man dropped a mug of tea, pure shock painted on his face. Whereas Aerith quickly jumped to pick up the pieces of the mug, the other girl started laughing and threw herself on Cid’s neck, launching into a mass of questions that arose along with her memories (was he still smoking? what about Shera, was she there too? which world did he come from?). Leon looked like he was about to start crying or jumping out of a window and once Yuffie marched to him to announce that he should have said from the beginning that Cid was going to be involved, he did actually sounded like he was crying and hysterically laughing at the same time. (_Cid simply kept cursing in the background, trying and failing to subtly dry his tears.)_

Some days Yuffie kept looking at her father, memories of how their relationship used to be, she wondered if she should have apologized for her previous life. She brought it up only once and Godo simply said that he wasn’t without fault either, and that they should try to use their second chance wisely. She also got out of him that the mysterious people who seemed to know her, were in fact Wutaians who recognized either her or her father.

There were also days when she had to check on Aerith through the entire day multiple times, just to make sure she was really alive and there weren’t any bloody spots on her clothes. Sometimes if she looked at her too quickly for her eyes to fully focus, she could have sworn that there were more people around the healer, the most prominent of them a young man with blonde hair and dark clothes.

A few times she was sure that she had spotted a familiar black mop of hair and a wide smile (now she remembered that she never really had a strong bond with Zack _before_, aside from a brief meeting, but the fact that she was the first person that he recognized from his _previous _ life, thus proving that he wasn’t crazy, made them form one _now_). But it always turned out to be someone else, not him. Never him. She vowed to herself that once she would be old enough, she’d go and bring him back home. Wherever that home even was. There were mornings, just before Yuffie opened her eyes, when she still thought she was back in Radiant Garden, sometimes even back in Wutai or on the road of a foreign world. Those moments always left her feeling sad for the rest of the day.

One day, she looked at her still growing collection of glass orbs, but her eyes showed her all of the materia that she had _before_, the name suddenly making sense, her hands twitching for something, anything, to keep busy. She tried pickpocketing a few times, her body remembering all of the movements, but it left her feeling uneasy, so Yuffie tried to stop this habit from reappearing.

It felt surprisingly normal for her to have memories of her mid-twenties whilst she was only twelve. It was sometimes hazy, to the point where she was unsure about her own age, or even who she really was. Because she wasn’t really the Single White Rose of Wutai anymore, neither she was the heir to the throne. She once told Aerith about it, to which the girl replied that maybe she is simply Yuffie and later she also opened up about it to Leon (it seemed fair, after she practically demanded to hear his entire life story after he first opened up about it). The brunette stopped cleaning his gunblade and just stared at her for a while, only to tell her that to him, she’s just the Great Ninja Yuffie. This made her go back to Aerith with a potted flower and a shiny new Mithril Ring for Leon as a thank you. If she also left a box of an expensive tea from another world on Cid’s desk, well, no one had to know it was her. Honestly, sometimes just the presence of her friends, old and new was enough for her to be thankful. It was a stark contrast to how she was before, but she was too afraid of the history repeating itself, to try and be as carefree as she was _before_.

Honestly, she was pretty sure none of them were the same, despite Leon’s stubbornly telling her that no, he doesn’t have a stick in his butt, he’s just like this.   
Aerith was… _happier_. She was happier than the Aerith from her memories. She was still calm and just as kind as before, but this time there was no Lifestream, she wasn’t a Cetra as far as she was aware, she was just Aerith, reborn, free of her past. She was simply a girl who was good at healing magic and had a green thumb. She was free to live this time, among her friends.  
She hadn’t known Leon _before_ but from what he said, he was slightly more social now, the loss of his friends hitting him hard. He was also sometimes jealous of her and Aerith, how they had each other and Cid and apparently more people, whilst he had no one. One time when he was particularly broody, she told him quietly about Zack, that she too knows the pain he carries. She also told him about a woman she sometimes remember, with black hair and strength that would put everyone to shame. How she hated that she couldn’t remember her face or her name. Leon in exchange told her about Rinoa, who was sweet and brave, about her dog, Angelo (which sort of explained why he always stopped to pet every dog he came across in their little town), he told her about the rest of his friends, how he still regretted not showing them more how much he appreciated their friendship.

There were night when she felt could have sworn she saw red eyes watching her from the dark alleys or empty corners, sometimes even rooftops. One time she told Leon about it, but he freaked out, afraid that it was yellow instead of red, looking frantically around for the glowing eyes of the Heartless. Then he grew even more anxious, remembering the brief appearance of the red eyed monsters with the strange crossed heart like symbol on their bodies. After this outburst, she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else again. The most surprising was the realization that she wasn’t afraid of those eyes. She found some sort of strange comfort in the thoughts about vibrant red eyes following her on the way to home. Sometimes she found herself with a name on the tip of her tongue, never able to recall it.

She couldn’t really explain those flashes of memories, they seemed random, unconnected. Like when she was looking for a new jacket and her eyes kept drifting to the red ones, despite not even liking the color that much. Out of curiosity Yuffie tried it on, but it felt like it was to small, too short, despite being her size. She was trying to ignore the feeling that it should have smelled of gunpowder.

When Yuffie Kissaragi turned sixteen for the second time, she could honestly say that she was used to the way her life was. She had almost no problem between telling _before_ and _now_ apart.

And then, _he _had arrived.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the little interaction between Yuffie and Zack in FF VII Crisis Core. Also I've been wondering how much of the FF lore still applies and how much Sora knows about it. So yeah, here it is, expect the second chapter around the end of November.


End file.
